In Memoriam
by We Stole Vodka From The Optic
Summary: Lucien, Sparrow and Reaver and the thing that tied them all together.


In Memoriam

* * *

Lucien Fairfax remembers simpler times, times of joy and innocence, times without sorrow and times without the constant fear of the Heroes encompassing his entire body, soul and mind. He remembers Amelia and his Lady, their sweets faces and polite laughs.

He remembers it all being torn from him, so quickly, as if he'd never even had a family at all. Disease took things quickly, destroyed people from the inside and out. They told him they'd never seen such a disease as this before, told him there was nothing they could and he… he threw his study chair in the wall and threw himself onto the ground. And he cried.

Lucien looked out the glass mosaic that was the single window in his study, and he promised himself that he would not forget them. That he could never forget them.

Months passed, and the life and vibrancy of summer gave way to the cold, cold crispiness of winter and Lucien found himself looking out that window again at the city of Bowerstone. How many times had he heard Amelia say she wanted to go outside and play with the other kids? So many moments, too little memories.

He finds himself envious of the crowds of people running alongside the streets. He finds himself envious of their hedonistic ways. Lucien hates them. How can they be happy when his family has been ripped from him? How can they enjoy life when there was nothing except death and destruction all around them?

He turns from that window and looks over his study with a detached gaze. All he had left were his books, and his research. There was, never would be, anything else in his life. Not while the memories of Amelia and Helena were still burned into his mind. Not while the world continued on without him.

Lucien turned to his desk, to the documents about the Tattered Spire and he leaned over them with interest. He would make a new world, a world without death, without time, without age. He could have Amelia and Helena back. He could.

All that stood in his way was a small, tiny and insignificant girl and the shadowed figures. The hooded woman. The Pilgrim. The Mage. The Thief. He would find them. He would break them. Without them, the world he so craved could be his and his alone.

With a single flourish, Lucien pushed all of the papers, all the markings of his desires onto the floor and did so with such an indifferent gaze that the sheer coldness of it rivaled the snow outside. Morality faded in the wake of his wishes and even Lucien, then, could not have predicted the monster he would become. He became icy, chilled.

Helena and Amelia… they became the only prevalent things in his mind.

Everything else, _everyone _else… they became nothing. They were in the way. They were in the way of his world, his perfect world.

The first time he felt anything, had been the first time he'd killed anyone.

"_They're children," _He had told himself. _"Why… oh, Amelia…"_

And then the Master Flintlock Pistol had gone off. The girl with the pigtails… Helena had had hair just like that… she crumpled to the ground, coughed up a mouthful of blood all over that Old Kingdom relic and everything that had been left in Lucien had been abruptly ripped out by some unknown, dangerous force.

He turned to the other girl, and she… she looked so much like Amelia with those large brown eyes and that beautiful dark hair… and she was scared. She was truly scared. He pulled back the hammer, and told himself that this was for a better world.

Out that beautiful window she went, like a dead bird, a dead sparrow.

And Lucien had thought that it was over.

It was not.

* * *

Sparrow remembers simpler times, times where they had had a home, times where her and Rose would play games and laugh about the silly boys next door. She remembers playing games of Addition and Kick The Can.

She remembers Rose, and the death that separated them both. She remembers the sound of gunshots, murmurs from a man sent halfway into insanity and the blood that connected them all. And she went into a deep chasm of hatred, a burning hatred that most certainly could not be quelled by any noble gestures or expressions of love.

She murdered. She thieved. She became corrupted and evil in the highest sense and Sparrow told herself that it was all to kill Lucien, to prepare herself for the moment where her axe would rend him in half, to get the money necessary for her equipment.

Care, affection, love… there was no place for such trivial things as that in her. She stood by her rotten convictions, and lived a life filled with hate and only hate. She looks out of the Spire in her Guard Uniform and she reminds herself that she must hold on to her wrath, her sense of vengeance because that was the only thing that could get her through this. Her defying of the Commandant, her unloved task kept her here, in the Tattered Spire for so long.

How she had wanted to shoot Lucien when she first arrived here, how she had wished her trusty pistol had been strapped to her hip. She had tried to move closer then, had tried to kill him and yet… she knew doing so would be foolish. Stupid. She would kill him only to have her own life stripped from her.

And her entire purpose of living this cruel, hateful life was to kill him and continue living, living with the thought that she had avenged Rose. She would not give anyone the pleasure, the assuagement of killing her.

It didn't matter that she lived an empty, abhorrent and corrupted life. Only vengeance mattered. Only comeuppance mattered.

Lucien would get his comeuppance, of that, Sparrow gave her word.

And the day, the day where her vengeance would be wrought…

She could not kill him.

"_What are you fighting to protect?" _And his words held conviction, conviction that was so much like her own. _"The world that robs us of what we love most?"_

Sparrow was reminded of Rose, of her beautiful, kind sister and the pistol in her hand wavered ever so slightly. The music box in the other hand dropped to the floor, useless and forgotten. She attempted to steady her hand, attempted to kill this monster, her thumb resting on the hammer of the gun but…

"_Is that what you think is worth preserving?" _

She didn't. She didn't want this world. She didn't want love, or affection, or care. She wanted hate, she craved vengeance. The pistol wavered once more, and Sparrow's shoulders sunk, melting a few degrees around the edges. _Do it,_ she told herself, _he robbed you of your sister, robbed you of your youth!_

"_You small-minded fool. Do you think you're the only who has ever suffered loss?"_

The pistol dipped downwards, and Sparrow, corrupt, fearless and monstrous Sparrow… she felt something touch her heart, something she hadn't felt in the longest time.

She felt sorrow.

"_Such a cold world does not deserve its own existence."_

The pistol fell this time, joining the music box on the floor. What was she doing? She needed to fight! She needed to kill! She needed to cease this pathetic display and-

"_There are no need for He-"_

A shot rang out. And it was over. Sparrow wrenched her upwards, her mouth agape as she watched Lucien's lifeless form fall from the dais and all the way down into the depths of the Spire. Reaver stood there, sweat dripping across his angular brow, Dragonstomper .42 pointed directly at the place Lucien had been only moments before.

Reaver made some off-hand, cheeky comment about Lucien but Sparrow simply stood there, staring at the place where Lucien had stood only moments before. She had wanted to kill Lucien. She had wanted to avenge Rose's memory and yet…

She couldn't. She just couldn't.

Lucien, in her own mind, had been right.

What use was there in living in a world where everything and everyone you loved was gone?

* * *

Sparrow had chosen Sacrifice. No one had deserved to have their loved ones ripped from Lucien's grasp. But she had no loved ones. No Rose. No Dog. No Theresa. No one. Her appearance had changed. Where her face had become twisted, grotesque, her skin had become clear. Beautiful. Her hair, once as dark as a moonless night, had turned to the color of hay.

And yet, she felt nothing. She did not feel pure, nor good. Hollow, harrowed, those were the terms to describe her now.

There was a sense of complacency in her life. A sense of uncaring.

She had bought Bloodstone Manor, and lived in that lawless town alone. She had wanted so much, to be alone. And there, there she stayed for five years, alone. She rejected memories, rejected tranquility, rejected dreams. There was no place for the past in her life.

That was, until _he _came back.

She had become older, more wizened, and wrinkles crinkled at the edges of her eyes and around her lips. Fat had grown where muscles once were, and she had turned into a husk of what she once was. Reaver, _he, _had remained the same. There was no change. No difference.

"You said you'd come back for your belongings." She stood in his bedroom, no it was _her _bedroom now, with that blasted Dragonstomper .42, the very same one that had robbed Lucien of his life, pressed against the temple of her forehead. "I've been waiting for you."

He had cocked an eyebrow at that, "Really? My little minx, you make yourself out to be a rather poor host, don't you think? No wine? No half-naked maids wandering about? Or even butlers, truly!"

"Just kill me, Reaver." She turned her head away from him, eyes glancing across the silken sheets. They really were such nice sheets. It would be a shame to get blood on them. "I've nothing to live for."

Now, _that, _that had surprised Reaver. Why, only five years ago, this woman had been such a spitfire. And yet, this time Reaver actually looked closely at her, noticing the heavy bags underneath her eyes, the wrinkles by her eyes. She had grown quite decrepit.

"What? No angry sex first? My dear, you really _are _a horrid host!" He chastised her, in his own, little mocking way.

What had come next, he had not expected. Sparrow whipped back around to face him, her hand lashing forward, striking his cheek. Reaver shot, the bullet whistling past Sparrow's head and lodging itself inside a cabinet. And, from the sound it made, it had struck something quite valuable and expensive. Reaver's back hit the wall, and Sparrow stood there, breathing heavy, angry gasps that gave out the impression of an enraged bull.

The two of them stared at each other, like cats sizing one another up. Reaver lifted his pistol once more, shaking slightly out of shock that she had _hit _him. Him! The Pirate King!

"You killed Lucien…" It came out more as a confession, than an actual statement. "When I had wanted to kill him." At this, she had dipped her head downwards, which was unfortunate because _now _Reaver couldn't get a good enough shot between her eyes. Tsk.

Reaver said nothing, which in itself was a marvel.

"I've no family. No real friends. No children. Nothing." Sparrow shook slightly. "Just kill me. This, buying your house, it was a suicide mission. A means to an end."

"Hmph, a rather _silly _idea, isn't it? And what do I get if I kill you? Hm?" Again, it was always about him. About what he wanted. What he got out of this arrangement.

"Your house. Your possessions." She replied, in the same cut-and-dry manner she always spoke in.

"I _could _just toss you into the streets like a piece of garbage as well, _amour." _He waved the pistol around with an air of arrogance and swagger no other man could have possibly achieved. "But this _is _an intriguing proposition you've brought to the table. Mind you, If _I _were in your shoes I'd go on living as before. Enjoy myself, kill some travelers, round up a few whores…"

"I'm not you, Reaver." She lifted her head again, a sad, sorry little display. "Just do it already. I'm not asking again."

Reaver, with that angular face and that damn, blasted expression, Reaver looked at her as if she were just another person. As if she were not Sparrow and never was Sparrow. As if she weren't the Hero of the Spire. He smirked at her, at _her._

Dragonstomper .42 went off. Sparrow's face held the most serenest expression and she fell backwards onto the nice, silken and expensive sheets. Her right arm folded underneath her, and she looked so at peace, so tranquil.

It was almost laughable.

Reaver looked at her body, watched with morbid fascination at the sight of death. It struck him, oddly. He'd killed hundreds, no _thousands, _and yet… he'd never once considered death. Death could not take him, would not take him, and his ability to shoot someone and never look back was quite astounding. But this woman, this little bird with her broken little wings, had actually caused him to turn face to death.

Odd. Bizarre.

It brought back memories of Oakvale, memories of the man Reaver once was and never would be again. And he tensed, slightly, as if something had taken hold of him, and that 'something' was a thing he'd never wanted to be reminded of again.

Memories.

Memories killed. They tore you apart.

Reaver remembers simpler times. Times of innocence and laughter, times of _her _and _him. _Times of joy. Times of death.

* * *

**This was more a character study on Lucien, a corrupted and revenge-driven Sparrow, and Reaver and the things that tie the three of them together. Obviously, I diverged directly away from Fable 3 here, by killing off my precious Hero.**

**Actually, I really just wanted to write Reaver. :-P**

**In Memoriam means 'in memory' in Latin.  
**

**Feedback is appreciated.**


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